Kangaroo Island Dunnart Project

The Kangaroo Island Landscape Board (KILB), the Department of Environment and water (DEW) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) undertook several concurrent threatened species, wildlife and habitat projects to better understand and assist recovery following the 2019-2020 Kangaroo Island (KI) bushfires. Monitoring commenced in February 2020. At each site a 30m long by 300mm high drift-line fence was installed with two Swift Enduro motion activated infra-red cameras positioned facing the drift-line, 5m from each end. Drift-lines were constructed of aluminium flywire or a combination of dampcourse with two 1 m long flywire sections sewed in where camera traps were positioned. Each camera was set to take 3 images per trigger and night mode was set to a minimum blur focus. KI dunnart detections were defined as a dunnart pass within a given five minute period, with passes within the same five minutes not recorded as a new detection; detections of dunnarts more than five minutes after the initial detection were counted as new detections. This approach reduced the chance that the same individual moving around in front of a camera, is counted as multiple detections. Note that we could not identify individual dunnarts, because they lacked distinguishing features. As sites were established by several projects either individually or collaboratively and for different objectives, slight modifications were made to the methodology which is represented in the project descriptions below. Each biological record should therefore be considered in respect the lead project and the specific methodology employed. Project 1 – Kangaroo Island Landscape Board, Kangaroo Island Dunnart Recovery Project Project 2 – Department of Environment and Water, Kangaroo Island Fire Recovery Project Project 3 – World Wildlife Fund, An Eye on Recovery